#since we should be done with selling our old apartment in warsaw by then and mums chill with me being by myself for a bit when im older

[voidcoretxt]

shaking crying throwing up projectile vomiting i just wish i was in a place in life where i can start streaming or at least doing youtube stuff...

[the-syndic4te]

And the Kantian Imperative? To tell the truth, I didn’t have much of an idea, I had told poor Eichmann pretty much whatever came into my head. In the Ukraine or in the Caucasus, questions of this kind still concerned me, difficulties distressed me and I discussed them seriously, with the feeling that they were a vital issue. But that feeling seemed to have gotten lost. Where, when did that happen? In Stalingrad? Or afterward? For a while I thought I had drowned, submerged by the things resurfaced from the depths of my past. And then, with the stupid, incomprehensible death of my mother, this anguish too had disappeared: the feeling that dominated me now was a vast indifference—not dull, but light and precise. Only my work engaged me; I felt I had been offered a stimulating challenge that would call on all my abilities, and I wanted to succeed—not for a promotion or for any ulterior ambitions, I had none, but simply to enjoy the satisfaction of a thing well done. It was in this state of mind that I left for Poland, accompanied by Piontek, leaving Fräulein Praxa in Berlin to see to my mail, my rent, and her nails. I had chosen a good time to begin my trip: my former superior in the Caucasus, Walter Bierkamp, was replacing Oberführer Schöngarth as BdS of the Generalgouvernement, and, having learned this from Brandt, I had gotten myself invited to the presentation ceremony. This took place in mid-June 1943, in Cracow, in the inner courtyard of the Wawel Castle, a magnificent building, even with its tall, thin columns hidden beneath banners. Hans Frank, the Generalgouverneur, gave a long speech from a platform set up in the rear of the courtyard, surrounded by dignitaries and by an honor guard. He looked a little ridiculous in his brown SA uniform with his tall stovepipe cap, the strap of which cut into his jowls. The crude frankness of the speech surprised me, I still remember, since there was a considerable audience there, not just representatives from the SP and the SD, but also from the Waffen-SS, civil servants in the GG, and officers from the Wehrmacht. Frank congratulated Schöngarth, who stood behind him, stiff and a head taller than Bierkamp, on his successes in the implementation of difficult aspects of National Socialist ideology. This speech has survived in the archives; here’s an extract that gives a good idea of the tone: In a state of war, where victory is at stake, where we are looking eternity in the face, this is an extremely difficult problem. How, it is often asked, can the need to cooperate with an alien culture be reconciled with the ideological aim of, say, wiping out the Polish Volkstum? How is the need to maintain industrial output compatible with the need, for example, to annihilate the Jews? These were good questions, yet I found it surprising that they were so openly aired. A GG civil servant assured me later on that Frank always spoke this way, and that in any case in Poland the extermination of the Jews wasn’t a secret for anyone. Frank, who must have been a handsome man before his face drowned in fat, spoke with a powerful but squeaky, almost hysterical voice; he kept rising on his toes, stretching his paunch over the podium, and waving his hand. Schöngarth, a man with a tall, square forehead, who spoke in a calm, somewhat pedantic voice, also gave a speech, followed by Bierkamp, whose National Socialist proclamations of faith I couldn’t help myself from finding a little hypocritical (but I probably found it hard to forgive the dirty trick he’d played on me). When I came up to congratulate him during the reception, he acted as if he were delighted to see me: “Sturmbannführer Aue! I heard you behaved heroically, in Stalingrad. My congratulations! I never doubted you.” His smile, in his little otter face, looked like a grimace; but it was entirely possible that he had in fact forgotten his last words in Voroshilovsk, which were hardly compatible with my new situation. He asked me some questions about my duties and assured me of the complete cooperation of his departments, promising me a letter of recommendation to his subordinates in Lublin, where I counted on beginning my inspection; he also told me, over a few drinks, how he had brought Group D back through Byelorussia, where, renamed Kampfgruppe Bierkamp, it had been assigned to the anti-partisan fight, especially north of the Pripet Marshes, taking part in the major cleansing operations, like the one code-named “Cottbus” that had just ended at the time of his transfer to Poland. About Korsemann, he whispered to me in a confidential tone that he had acted poorly and was on the point of losing his position; there was talk of putting him on trial for cowardice in the face of the enemy, he would at the very least be stripped of his rank and sent to redeem himself at the front. “He should have followed the example of a man like you. But his indulgence toward the Wehrmacht has cost him dearly.” These words made me smile: for a man like Bierkamp, obviously, success was everything. He himself hadn’t done too badly; BdS was an important position, especially in the Generalgouvernement. I didn’t mention the past, either. What counted was the present, and if Bierkamp could help me, so much the better. I spent a few days in Cracow, to go to meetings and also to enjoy this beautiful city a little. I visited the old Jewish quarter, the Kasimierz, now occupied by haggard, sickly, and unkempt Poles, displaced by the Germanization of the Incorporated Territories. The synagogues hadn’t been destroyed: Frank, they said, wanted some material traces of Polish Judaism to survive, for the edification of future generations. Some served as warehouses, others remained closed; I had the two oldest ones opened for me, around the long Szeroka Square. The so-called Old Synagogue, which dated back to the fifteenth century, with its long crenellated-roof annex added for women in the sixteenth or early seventeenth century, served the Wehrmacht to store food supplies and spare parts; the brick façade, many times remodeled, the blocked windows, white limestone arches, and somewhat randomly set sandstone blocks had an almost Venetian charm, and owed much to the Italian architects working in Poland and Galicia. The Remuh Synagogue, at the other end of the square, was a small, narrow, sooty building of no architectural interest. But of the large Jewish cemetery surrounding it, which would certainly have been worth the trouble of visiting, nothing more remained but a vacant, desolate lot; the old gravestones had been taken away as construction material. The young officer from the Gestapostelle who accompanied me knew the history of Polish Judaism very well, and showed me where the grave of Rabbi Moses Isserles, a famous Talmudist, had been. “As soon as Prince Mieszko began to impose the Catholic faith on Poland, in the tenth century,” he explained, “the Jews appeared to sell salt, wheat, furs, wine. Since they made the kings richer, they obtained franchise after franchise. The people, at that time, were still pagan, healthy and unspoiled, apart from a few Orthodox Christians to the East. So the Jews helped Catholicism implant itself on Polish soil, and in exchange, Catholicism protected the Jews. Long after the conversion of the people, the Jews kept this position of agents of the powerful, helping the pan bleed the peasants by every means possible, serving them as bailiffs, usurers, holding all commerce firmly in their hands. Hence the persistence and strength of Polish anti-Semitism: for the Polish people, the Jew has always been an exploiter, and even if the Poles hate us profoundly, they still approve of our solution to the Jewish problem from the bottom of their hearts. That’s also true for the supporters of the Armia Krajowa, who are all Catholics and bigots, even if it’s a little less true for the Communist partisans, who are forced, sometimes against their will, to follow the Moscow Party line.”—“But the AK sold weapons to the Jews in Warsaw.”—“Their worst weapons, in ridiculous quantities, at exorbitant prices. According to our information, they agreed to sell them only on direct orders from London, where the Jews are manipulating their so-called government in exile.”—“And how many Jews are left now?”—“I don’t know the exact number. But I can assure you that before the end of the year all the ghettos will be liquidated. Aside from our camps and a handful of partisans, there won’t be any more Jews left in Poland. Then it will finally be time to look seriously into the Polish question. They too will have to submit to a major demographic diminution.”—“Total?”—“I don’t know about total. The economics departments are in the process of studying it and making calculations. But it will be sizeable: the overpopulation is far too important. Without that, this region can never prosper or flourish.”

Jonathan Littell “Les Bienveillantes”

[polandandback2019]

June 9-12

We left Krakow early on the 10th and headed toward a small village that was famous for painted houses. We got there and didn't see any painted houses at the end of the Google search spot. We actually weren't looking for the right thing. We backtracked who found five or six buildings clumped together and a museum of houses. We had driven right past them.  There were workers at the Museum, but they were doing Grounds Maintenance and when Elizabeth walked in to use the water closet, which was locked, no one said a word or offered any assistance.  We took some pictures and headed for Lublin to see the castle and a few other sights. We reserved a very nice apartment which we thought was close to downtown, but some of these descriptions about how close something is to downtown is relative. We got there relatively late, so we decided to get some food for dinner at a local grocery store, buy a beer or two and relax. The next morning we drove to the Old Town and found a parking place right across from the Krakow gate.  It's called the Krakow gate because when you went through that gate you are on the road to Krakow and it was called The Royal Road. We have been told you should drive on that road from the guidebooks, but didn't know we had driven from Krakow to Lublin on part of the road. We went down to the Castle on the street that passes through the Jewish gate on the other end of the walled City. Lublin has been called Little Jerusalem because there was a very vibrant Jewish community in olden times. It was said that Christianity stopped at the Jewish gate Judaism began. They apparently lived in great Harmony until the Germans came.We took the chance to visit the town hall and a nice policeman told us we were welcome to look around. Lublin is celebrating 450 years since it's signed a compact with Lithuania which joined their country together and created a Polish state where the King was elected.  It was a landmark agreement that was studied by the British when they were creating the Magna Carta. It was the first such Union of countries in the history of  Europe that actually worked..  We wanted to see 4 things in Lublin, the castle, Chapel at the castle, climb up the tower and the Saint John the Baptist Church. Unfortunately, the castle Museum was closed St John the Baptist Church was broadcasting a live service over polish TV that morning. We did get to see the chapel which had frescoes that had painted in the 15th century and we're plastered over until someone noticed the colors under the plaster over a hundred years ago. They began cleaning it and repainting the  Fresco's, but they didn't control the humidity and heat etc so calcium salts started to leach out of the mortar. They painted over the calcium salts and then when they were able to control the humidity and make the wall more stable they had to remove all the calcium salts repaint frescoes. It took over a hundred years in total at various times to do what they did. Some are not finished, but the others are sensational. We then walked up to the top of the tower to take some pictures of Lublin. We met a couple from Mexico City and a family from Denver while we were there. The family from Denver are actually from Poland, at least the mother and father are. The two young children probably 15 and 12 may have been born in the US. They are on a 7 week vacation visiting relatives and attending a wedding.  The mother said even when you have seven weeks it's hard to get everything done and make everyone happy. We were able to get back to our car and get on the road with only 2 hours parking and headed toward Warsaw. It was Interstate for about 40 miles and then a temporary road paralleling the new Interstate being constructed, then there was 20 miles of Interstate before we went onto an access road again.. Traffic was moving rather smoothly until we got within 35 miles of Warsaw and it came to a dead standstill. We waited for about 5 or so minutes thinking it might be a traffic light at a construction site. A few people turned around and then we saw the ambulance come past us we knew there was an accident. At that point we decided to turn around and find an alternate route when we saw a helicopter coming in air flight someone, so we thought it was probably a pretty bad accident and we would have been there for several hours. A police car had pulled off the side of the road and when we turned around and a car behind us turned around, he pulled out behind us. I didn't think I had done anything wrong and I hoped he did too.  We set our GPS for Warsaw as we turned right off the exit road into a small town and the policeman continued to follow us.   I stayed right at the 50 km an hour speed limit until we got to an intersection where I had to turn left.  The policeman turned right so we headed on to Warsaw via another route. We don't know what happened about the other traffic. We found the reception desk where the people who rent a group of hotels in and around Warsaw worked. It wasn't easy. The address was the address of a clothing store but there was a sign above the outside of the clothing store saying the Apartments Away hotels are here, but there was no sign nearby about where to go in. One of the clerks said she didn't speak English but knew about the apartment she just suggested we go right by gestures, just go away. That's the first rude person we've ever encountered on this trip. As we were leaving a young lady was explaining to us to go down the street to the gate. I asked gate or door because I wasn't sure what her English capabilities were. She said I go quickly and show you and 50 feet down the street there was a gate. We went in and found the man who told us our hotel was about 3 km away the Old Town. He gave clear instructions on where to drive and park on the streets. Parking is free from 6 at night until 8 in the morning so I had to put money in the meter for 3 hours. The system for picking your number of hours is not as clear when I first started. I figured it out this morning, but I screwed up the day and thought I was buying the time for tomorrow, but in reality I was paying from 8 in the morning on the 12th until 8:01 in the morning on the 13th, so I put too little money and I have to go back at 5:24 and buy 40 more minutes of time for today.

June 12

We got up early this morning and picked up a 24 hour subway pass and got to do a lot of things from 10 in the morning until 4 this afternoon that we had to have transportation to. The subways are very efficient, but they're only two of them  We had to walk 20 minutes to the first station. The next stops weren’t that far from several Museums we wanted to go see including the Warsaw Uprising Museum, the Chopin Museum and the Church of the Cross.  The Church of the Cross and the Chopin Museum required one more ride from where the uprising Museum was. The problem with only staying in the town a few days is that by the time you get transportation system down pat and learn the map layout, it's time to move on. We came home and rested a couple of hours in sweltering heat with the door to the stairway open so some air could flow upwards and then out the windows on the east side of our apartment. It's like living in New York City in the fifties without air conditioning on the fifth floor of a walk-up apartment where my grandmother lived.  She always lived on the highest floor of her building because she said a crook would not climb that high to rob you. We have been used to this heat in the sixties and seventies without air conditioning. The poles are dying, not literally, but the heat is really exacting a price on the local population.  The restaurants and bars are happy because they are selling a lot of beer. We walked down to a local restaurant to have a Caesar salad tonight, with beer of course, and ended up talking to a neighbor who is from Berlin. He has travelled to America many times but never to the middle of America. His wife teaches American English in the German School System. We hope someday he will come to visit us because we had quite a nice conversation for about an hour. He thought my German was really good. I like the fact that an old fart can still speak another language. The pictures below are from our travel up to June 12.  We will load more pics and a narrative from June 13th later,